Redirect energies to positive activities - Letter to My Paper 14 April 2008

Redirect energies to positive activities

BERNARD LAW CHER GUAN

I REFER to the news reports on a teenager who hurled vulgarities at his teacher
and how his mother helped him change by exposing him to temporary hardship at a construction work site, as well as the report on how an elderly couple were beaten up in a road rage incident.

The mother of the youth, Madam Lim Hoon Har, should be commended for acknowledging her son’s abusive behaviour towards his teacher.

The task of parenting must be understandably tough, as she juggles the multiple demands at work and at home.
While some may disagree with her choice of corrective action, most people, including me, would applaud her for having the courage to be decisive on reforming her son.

Given a choice, who would want to see his or her own child suffer? As for the road rage case, the bully should be brought to jus- tice to underscore the high pre- mium we place on safety on our roads and, more importantly, in the way we treat our elderly people.

Emotions drive our actions every day.

Our society must address how our youths and, in the road rage case, our adults, deal with their emotions, particularly those that are potentially abusive or even violent. If we fail to address this, these same youths could become the criminals of tomorrow.

The pace of our lifestyle has grown faster. We face many stressful and unpleasant encounters daily on the roads or at work.
More people are thus becoming more prone to venting their anger and anxiety and, as a result, we are more exposed to such feelings and actions. We may then mistake these emotions as “understandable” or, worse, acceptable ways to deal with negative emotions.

Furthermore, what is also true is that, in a group, emotions can be self-fulfilling, in that a more domineering member with the strongest emotion may influence the actions of the rest.

Madam Lim has rightly made the choice to help her son positive and productive activities. The ability to recognise and “de-escalate” the build-up of bad emotions is a learnable skill that can be acted upon.

As we invest in more obvious and measurable training programmes at our schools as well as at work, emotional intelligence is one aspect that we should also focus on.